


His Reason to Search

by NightwingsAngel



Series: His Reason... [4]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, Nightwing (Comics), Red Hood and the Outlaws (Comics)
Genre: Dick Grayson is Nightwing, Dick is worried, Drama, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Guilt, Heartache, Hurt/Comfort, Jason Todd is Red Hood, Jason is on the run, M/M, Mild Language, Past F/M, Past Relationship(s), Pre-Slash, Romance, Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-12
Updated: 2016-06-12
Packaged: 2018-07-14 12:52:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7172534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NightwingsAngel/pseuds/NightwingsAngel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dick Grayson has recovered from being shot by Jason Todd, but now he's worried about where his possible lover could be and how he's going to explain what really was going on between him and Rose. He ends up having to tell Bruce and the rest of the family why Jason has gone missing and convincing them that it's him that's at fault.</p>
            </blockquote>





	His Reason to Search

“Hiyah! Huh, huh, he, Ya!” Damian called out as he delivered a series of attacks on the assassin that’d been foolish enough to try removing Robin’s head.

                Nightwing heard a sickening crack and whipped his head around to check on the youngest bird, jabbing the end of one of his escrima sticks into his own assassin. The black and blue weapon crackled as a jolt of electricity was shot into the assassin’s gut. The assassin barely managed a choked groan before his body fell to the dirty ground of the old bunker.

                Nightwing twisted, stepping over the twitching body to get closer to his partner. Damian was holding his own and the sickening crack he’d heard had apparently been made when the boy delivered a hard punch to the now unconscious assassin laying at his boot clad feet, but he still didn’t feel comfortable being too far away from the little bird. He hadn’t even wanted Damian to come along. Damian was never supposed to get messed up in this. None of them were. Yet, somewhere along the way, the mission Dick was doing for a friend stopped being his mission and started being theirs. He blamed Jason.

                If Jason hadn’t left him bleeding out on the floor of a mostly empty apartment then he wouldn’t have had to explain the situation to Bats, and if he wouldn’t have had to explain anything then he’d be the only one risking his life. He also would have been spared the pitying looks his family had been giving him.

                Just the thought of Jason, even if it was to cast blame, caused an ache in Dick’s heart. It’d been four months since he’d last seen him and the last time hadn’t exactly been ideal.

                Nightwing rubbed at his left shoulder as he remembered the bullet that’d pierced it four months before. It had still been healing from a previous bullet wound when it’d been torn open. The second shot had hurt worse than the first and it wasn’t because the flesh had still been tender. No. It’d hurt more because it had been Jason who’d fired the gun. Because Jason’s eyes had been wild, and crazy, and scared, but most of all it hurt more because it had been inflicted because of the unnecessary pain Dick had accidently caused the Red Hood.

                Three months and 25 days ago, he’d awoken to a harsh light and a cool surface. It hadn’t taken him long to realize that he was in the Batcave’s medbay. His shoulder hurt like someone had driven a semi over it and his head pounded from the bright light shining down upon him. He could feel the little needle stuck into the juncture of his left arm and hear muffled voices.

                “Grayson? Father, he’s awake,” Damian’s voice was the first one that lost its underwater sound, evening out so it was clear enough for Dick to make sense of his words.

                “Thank heavens.” Alfred. That voice had to be Alfred’s. It had too rich of an English accent to be anyone but the beloved butler’s.  

                “Dick. Richard, can you hear me?” Slowly Bruce’s voice also swam into focus. “Chum, can you hear me?”

                Dick blinked. He could hear them, but when he went to talk his tongue felt heavy. It took him a moment and a few times swallowing to form any sort of reply, and his first attempt only resulted in a pain filled groan.

                “I believe it is time for his next round of pain medication, sir,” Alfred had voiced.

                “Not yet,” Bruce’s voice was sharp and unyielding, more like the Bat’s then Brucie’s. It was a tone Dick had come to associate to the occasional moments that Bruce went into father mode. The moments when he was scared or worried about one of his sons. Not that Bruce would ever admit that he had a father mode. To him he was just the Bat or Brucie. Dick, however, knew better. So did Tim. And Damian. Jason didn’t. Jason was pretty much sure that even Bruce’s playboy persona didn’t really exist. To Jason, Bruce was always the Bat and never the man behind the mask. “Chum, can you tell me what happened?”

                “Ugh, Jason,” Dick managed to grind out. He wanted to stop talking and succumb to whatever medication Alfred had wanted to give him so that he wouldn’t have to feel the throbbing pain in his shoulder and aching crack in his heart, but he knew he had to continue speaking or else Bruce would take his words the wrong way and he didn’t want the Batman chasing down Red Hood because he thought he’d tried to murder Nightwing.

                “You found Jason?” Tim’s voice now; puzzled and elated. “What were you thinking confronting him alone? You do realize he’s been on another one of his killing sprees, right?”

                “Tim,” Bruce’s voice cut Red Robin off.

                “As much as it pains me to say this, Drake is right,” Damian sneered. “Grayson, what were you thinking? Do you have a secret death wish that we should be aware of?”

                “My fault,” Dick managed to choke out with a clenched jaw. “Not Jason’s. My fault. The killing spree. My shoulder. My fault.”

                There was silence for a moment before Bruce’s voice rang out clear and rough right next to Dick’s side. “He’s not making any sense. Alfred, go ahead and give him the medication. Let’s hope the next time he wakes up he’ll be in a much clearer mind state.”

                But he hadn’t been in a clearer mind state. It’d taken some time for Dick to convince Bruce that the whole situation really was his fault and even then Bruce only reluctantly agreed to not go after the second Robin. Of course that was after he about died of shock from Dick’s tale.

                Richard Grayson could count on one hand the number of times he’d seen his mentor truly, deeply shocked. The number of times that it didn’t matter what mask Bruce had been wearing, the playboy or the cowl, for he was reduced to raw emotion. This was the time that Dick thought might actually kill the man.

                “You and Jason what?” Tim had blinked, not believing Dick’s words.

                Alfred had frozen in the doorway of Bruce’s study, a silver tray of hot cookies in his hands.

                Damian was sputtering, spiting the milk he’d been about to swallow back into his glass, and Bruce was slack jawed and as unmoving as one of the manor’s lawn statues.

                “Grayson!” Damian declared after he stopped drowning on his milk. “Are you still high on pain medication?”

                Dick had sighed and leaned against Bruce’s desk. His brothers were perched in the two high backed chairs across from the desk and Bruce was standing by the bookshelf. Alfred still hadn’t moved from the doorway.

                “I didn’t mean for it to happen,” Dick had run a hand through his tangled hair. He noted that it was probably about time he got it cut again as the black strands threatened to block his vision. “I was in a bad place and he helped me. When he told me he loved me I swear I had no intention of doing anything about it. I mean, I figured it was just a crush. Like he had when he was a kid. Then we started spending a lot of time together and, I don’t know, somehow we ended up sort of dating.”

                “Define sort of,” Damian insisted.

                “Well, it wasn’t official or anything, Little D, but it’s definitely where we were headed.”

                “So what happened?” Tim asked, of course. Being the detective he was, he wanted all the details. To him, every little bit of the story was important.

                “I screwed up,” Dick said with a sigh.  “You know how many failed relationships I’ve had. I wanted to take this one slow. I didn’t want to risk losing Jason forever because I jumped the gun. So I never told him how I felt. To be honest, I didn’t even know I felt that way about him until he walked in on me and Rose.”

                “Dear god, Grayson!” Damian exclaimed. “You were fucking Wilson while falling for Todd? What is wrong with you? Father, I demand we do a CAT scan. There is something seriously wrong with Grayson.”

                Bruce seemed to shake himself out of his stupor. “As out of character as cheating is for your brother, I don’t see a need for such testing.”

                “I didn’t fuck her!” Dick deadpanned. “It was raining and she needed my help. Slade’s sent someone to kill her and she wanted my help to get them off her trail. I let her use my shower and gave her some of my clothes to wear for the night, that’s it. We ate left over Chinese takeout and talked about who was after her all night, in between me repeatedly calling Jason to try and explain. Maybe I should have called him before he even showed up, but I didn’t think about it, and when he came through my window and saw her…” he groaned at the thought of what the situation must have looked like to Jason; at the memory of the hurt that’d flashed in Jason’s eyes. To find Rose Wilson standing in Dick’s living room with nothing on but one of his button up shirts and him half-dressed because he’d been ready for a night in with Jason before she’d shown up, must have given the younger Robin more than a shock. He knew that if it’d been him who’d come through the window to find one of Jason’s ex’s in his apartment he probably would have assumed the same thing. Especially if she’d been dressed like Rose was.

                “He left so fast,” Dick’s throat clenched at the memory. “I tried calling him, and calling him, and calling him. I texted him. I even tried getting a hold of Roy. Neither of them would answer for me and the trampled roses he’d left on my apartment floor are still sitting in a bottle on my counter, and they’ve been dead for weeks.”

                “This doesn’t explain how Todd shooting you was your fault,” Damian observed.

                “A couple months after Jason found me with Rose, I got a call from Roy saying that Jason had gone full on Lazarus pit. He was worried he’d hurt himself so he gave me some info and I was able to track him down,” Dick explained. “I found him in one of his old safe houses. One of the ones he abandoned because he found out we knew about them. He was interrogating a thug and had a gun pressed against the man’s temple. He wasn’t very happy when I showed up. Bruce, he was scared. His eyes were Lazarus green.”

                “You know better than to confront him when he’s under the effects of the pit,” Bruce chided.

                “I know. I know. But he needed me. He was a mess and I was to blame. I knew that the effect had been triggered by seeing Rose and I. You know how he gets when he’s emotional.”

                Bruce nodded, recalling a few times he’d faced Red Hood when the boy had undergone a lot of emotional stress.

                “I thought if I could explain then he’d be okay and everything could go back to normal, but he was too far gone. I don’t even know if Jason was actually there. It was more like he’d been consumed by the pit. To be fair, he did kind of warn me, but I still approached him. We wrestled for a bit and he backed himself into a corner. When I realized he’d done that I backed off but it was too late. He’d gone nuclear. I provoked him, Bruce. This,” Dick gestured to his wrapped shoulder, “was my fault, and now he’s out there somewhere, probably thinking he’s killed me. We have to find him. I have to fix this.”

                “We’ll find him,” Bruce promised, “but you need to rest. I’m removing you from Patrol for at least two months.”

                “What?” Dick fought back.

                In the end Dick lost and was removed from the patrol roster for two months. After that he started doing little cases on the side of the bigger one Rose had given him. Of course, after Bruce found out about the case he instead on helping. Which was why Dick now found himself fighting side by side by the Bat and Bird, through an old warehouse that Slade’s assassin was supposedly camped out in.

                Red Robin was the only family member who wasn’t directly involved with the case. He ran references and data for them. Sometimes he even played Oracle, but Dick had given him a different task that took up most of his time.

                Dick was convinced that Bruce had found Jason. The Bat wouldn’t have rested until he’d found his lost bird, but he also didn’t show any interest in pursuing him anymore. Not since Dick’s revelation. Red Robin had been recruited to hack the bat computer and find Jason’s whereabouts. It’d been tough and for weeks he’d told Dick that it might be a helpless cause, but two days ago He’d called Nightwing up in the middle of the night and said:

                “I think I’ve found him. I don’t know for sure but there’s been a transfer from Jason’s private account to a bank in Star City and a payment to an apartment complex. The apartment is leased under Roy Harper’s name, but I happen to know that Roy is still camped out at the apartment he and Jason kept in the bowery.”

                “It has to be Jason,” Dick had gotten excited. He’d wanted to be on the first flight there but Tim had reasoned that Dick probably wouldn’t be the first person Jason would want to see.

                “We could be wrong, and even if we aren’t, I doubt Jay really wants to see you right now,” Tim had stated. “Why don’t I go and check it out? I’ll go under the guise of Timothy Drake-Wayne and find some sort of charity to appear at. I’ll line everything up so I have a palpable reason for being there and Jason can’t accuse me of coming after him. Talking to him will be easier if he doesn’t think we’re chasing him.”

                Dick had been reluctant to agree to stay behind but Tim promised he’d try to talk Jason into returning to Gotham. The next day Tim was on a plane to Star City and Dick was stuck in the Batcave putting some final touches on a plan to get rid of the assassins after Rose.

                Now, he and Robin were surrounded by the unconscious bodies of assassins and Batman was trailing Death Stroke through the city. They hadn’t planned to take down the swordsman. The whole plan had been to distract him and Dick was pretty sure they’d done a hell of a job of it. With Death Stroke occupied, Rose was headed towards a new life with a new identity in Caribbean. Dick just hoped everything would work out for her.

                As the clock rang three times, signaling the early hour, Dick followed the Batmobile into the cave. He parked his bike and slipped off his black and blue helmet just as Batman and Robin excited the shiny black car.  Batman hadn’t caught up with Death Stroke, but he managed to keep him on the run for a few hours before calling it a night and demanding that they all return to the manor.

                Dick yawned, stretching his arms above his head as he readied to switch out of his uniform and mount his civilian bike.

                “That’s a wrap,” He grinned, though all of his grins were tight now that Jason wasn’t around. “What I wouldn’t give for a hot shower and a warm bed right now. Think I’ll be heading home, Bats.”

                “You’re staying here tonight,” Batman stated, leaving no room for argument.

                Dick groaned. “I haven’t been back to my apartment in four months, Bruce. What’s the point of paying rent if I’m never there?”

                “I think we can afford your rent,” Bruce rolled his eyes beneath the cowl. “The bio-readings from your suit are still sending reports of high stress levels and minimal usage of your left arm. I want Doctor Leslie Thompkins to take another look at your shoulder.”

                “I’m not a kid, B,” Dick responded. “I’m find. My shoulder’s just a little sore.”

                “And the stress levels?”

                “Maybe if I wasn’t in the same house with you and Damian all the time they’d even out a bit.”

                “Unlikely. They have never been this high in the past. It is Jason that is causing the spike and I will not allow you to leave the manor until I can trust that they are stable and will remain stable while you are away.”

                “You’re grounding me because I’m moody over a boy?”

                “No. I’m ‘grounding’ you because your need to find Jason makes you a flight risk.”

                “What if I promise not to go after him?”

                “Your promise, in this instance, Grayson, means little,” Damian chimed in. “As Father has told me several times, you are an emotional being and therefore must be handled with care. We cannot risk you losing control and leaving the city because of Todd. Especially not since you are still injured.”

                Nightwing frowned and began to pry the domino mask away from his eyes. “Did you really tell him that I’m an emotional being that must be handled with care, B? I’m insulted that you think I can shatter so easily.”

                Bruce merely grunted in response before saying. “Change. Shower. Bed.”

                Damian gave his father a curt nod at the order and went to do just that, while Dick rolled his cerulean blue eyes and mockingly said, “Yes, dad. If we’re good boys and hurry up will you read us a bedtime story?”

                Bruce didn’t respond and Dick didn’t expect him to. He did, however, follow Bruce’s request and he almost fell asleep as soon as his head hit his pillow. He stared at the picture of him, Bruce, and Jason that sat on the nightstand of his manor bedroom. It’d been taken shortly after the kid had become Robin and Jason was making a funny face at the camera while Dick laughed and Bruce was rolling his eyes.

                He’d been about to fall asleep, thinking of Jason and all of the good and bad times they’d had together, when his phone tweeted. A dim blue light lit up the room as he swiped the phone from its spot beside the picture. The grin the broke out on his face when he read the text from Tim was so contagious that it could have even infected the Batman, had he been in the room.

                “I found Jason.”


End file.
